Therese, standing rather behind fat Madame Lemaire, and her basket, was in a little flame of excitement. Her colour rose, her eye sparkled, one or two people near looked at her with curiosity and admiration, but she did not remark it. She liked the old woman with her ugly, half comical, half-pathetic face, and wanted her to be proved in the right; M. Deshoulieres, who found himself, to his amusement, constituted a kind of judge, little knew what a warm partisan of the accused was watching him from the background with flashing eyes. He asked a few necessary questions; the sacks had been brought tied and marked as usual, the bill of the quantity delivered to Madame Mathurine, Jean-Marie stoutly denied any encounters on the road. M. Deshoulieres felt convinced that he denied too much; old Nannon, on the contrary, was in triumph. "Now monsieur sees that he is telling the truth!" "That is just what he is not doing," said the doctor severely. "If he can give no other account of himself, and Madame Mathurine does not call in the commissary of police, it will be Gohon's duty to do so. As for you, Nannon, you should know better than to encourage him." "Oh, monsieur!" Nannon's face was tragic. Therese was altogether on her side against M. Deshoulieres' harshness. No one can be so unjust as a girl when her feelings are brought into the battle-field; Nannon's young champion would have ridden pell-mell over right and wrong, laws and principles, Madame Mathurine, and the whole corporation, in defence of this old woman with her foolish, unreasonable love. She detested M. Deshoulieres when he said:-- "It is true. Listen to me, Jean-Marie. You shall have one chance more. Whom did you see on your road here to-day?" Something came out which sounded like "the Simons and Michault." There was a murmur of indignation. "Imagine the little wicked one vowing that he met no one!" "Did monsieur conceive the road to be a desert?" said Nannon, drawing herself up defiantly. "Where was Michault?" asked M. Deshoulieres, disregarding. "He was at Cottereau's."